And why we need to focus on healthy body image

This makes me crazy mad, I mean seriously seeing red mad, Aren’t we over the whole skinny is a healthy phase. Didn’t we learn all the drugs from the 60’s/70’s and the eating disorders from the ’80s/’90s didn’t equate to being healthy? Hell, I’m pretty sure we have the highest rater of thyroid issues than ever before…hmm…I wonder why?

I was shocked when my tween daughter came home the other day and told me her friend was going to help her be healthier and that first thing she had to do was stop eating breakfast. Let me sidetrack a moment, we have been trying to instill a healthy exercise level within our kids, much like most other kids, ours don’t spend enough time being active. So one of the suggestions was working out with a friend since her one friend didn’t live close we suggested facetime work-outs. Hence where we are today with her friend helping her be “healthy”.

This information wasn’t some information this girl made up, its something she heard from somewhere and most likely a female in her life (could be a male but normally I hear this sort of thing out of women mouths). I’ve done it too, after overindulging, the pants a bit snug skipped dinner (more than once) or just had a cup of coffee for breakfast. I’ve even heard my daughters ask why I’m not eating dinner one night and my automatic response was “my pants were a little tight” or “I need to lose weight”. What I should have done was got a fresh salad some nuts/seeds or a small bowl of fresh veggie soup. It’s not the veggies that made my pants tight, I can guarantee you it was the overindulgence of sweets and eating my body weight in Brie cheese.

I want to say something loud and clear starving yourself is not healthy, it will not help long weight loss. If you have an issue with over-eating forced restriction is not going to fix the root issue. And depriving your body of food and nutrients is in no way shape or form HEALTHY. Being skinny is not a determining factor of health.

We need to stop starving ourselves in order to maintain a preferred weight, focus more on healthy habits. The movement of healthy body image has started and is taking shape now we need to internalize it in ourselves. It’s going to be hard, most of us grew up with the body shaming and food restriction. We talk about a healthy body image with our kids but we aren’t practicing what we preach, we have our own internal struggle and the problem is our kids see it. We raised them too well, they see our BS and they are following what we are doing and not what we are saying. If you want the next generation to love themselves we need to find it in us to love ourselves first.

So how can we do this? Re-train! Every time you want to skip a meal because you feel fat, tell yourself one thing you love about you, and then eat something fresh, apple, carrot or nuts something that says “I will not starve you today”. Tomorrow when that thought crosses our mind do the same thing but this time maybe a small meal or apple and peanut butter, make the food choices fresh. We don’t need to feel the self love all at once it’s going to take time but our kids will see it. Little by little, we will be feeding ourselves because we love ourselves instead of starving ourselves because we don’t like how we look.